Now - The Spurgeon Center

CONTENT SAMPLER
His Earliest Outlines and Sermons between 1851 and 1854
CONTENT SAMPLER
NOT FOR RESALE
TEXT NOT FINAL
© Copyright 2016 by Christian T. George
B&H Publishing Group
Nashville, Tennessee
All rights reserved.
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INTRODUCTION
“Lord speak by me to some, to many, through Jesus who died. Amen.”
– Charles Spurgeon
(Notebook 3, Sermon No. 175, 1853)
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was the most popular preacher in the Victorian world.1 Within ten years of accepting the
pastorate of the New Park Street Chapel in London, the dwindling congregation expanded to become the largest
church in Protestant Christendom. Even the most spacious venues in the world’s most cosmopolitan city—the Surrey
Garden Music Hall, Exeter Hall, and the Crystal Palace— could not adequately accommodate the large crowds who
sought to hear the young, newfangled, Baptist preacher. Spurgeon’s conversational and picture-packed preaching
stood in high relief against the “monotonous” and “dull” sermons of his day.2 The preacher “must preach Christ so
plainly,” wrote Spurgeon, “that his hearers can not only understand him, but that they cannot misunderstand him
even if they try to do so.”3
By 1892, Spurgeon had spawned sixty-six parachurch ministries: a theological college, two orphanages, a book
fund, a clothing drive, a Sunday school for the blind, and a ministry to policemen, among dozens more. Over 14,000
baptisms were recorded by the end of his ministry. Spurgeon’s baritone voice could reach crowds of three thousand
or twenty-three thousand4—a throwback to the days of George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and John Wesley.
Spurgeon’s printed sermons were translated into nearly forty languages including German, Gaelic, Swedish, Welsh,
and Portuguese.5 Sold for a penny, these sermons were found in the hands of Christians in China, bandsmen in India,
Mediterranean fishermen, coffee farmers in Sri Lanka, sailors in San Francisco, preachers in Tennessee, Roman
Catholics on pilgrimage, and even those awaiting execution in the Caribbean.6 Tourists from America were greeted
with two questions upon their return: “‘Did you see the Queen?’ and ‘Did you hear Spurgeon?’”7 It was rumored that
Victoria herself snuck into Spurgeon’s worship service disguised in pedestrian garb so as to remain anonymous.8
Spurgeon’s popularity in the pulpit was matched only by his productivity with the press. By 1892, Spurgeon
had published more words in the English language than any other Christian in history: sixty-two volumes of
sermons,9 a monthly magazine, approximately 140 books, and a commentary on the Psalms that took twenty years
to complete. The sum of Spurgeon’s published words exceeded those found in the famed 1875-89 ninth edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica.10 Every week, Spurgeon internalized six meaty books, preached three to ten times, and
constantly switched hats among pastor, president, editor, author, and evangelist. After thirty-eight years in London,
Spurgeon had proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ to an estimated ten million people, and that without the aid of
television, radio, or the Internet. It is small wonder that Carl F. H. Henry called him “one of evangelical Christianity’s
immortals.”11
But there is another side of Spurgeon lost on those who grant him immortal status, namely, that of a burgeoning
“preacher boy of the fens.”12 Before Spurgeon became the Lion of London,13 he preached itinerantly in the small
villages of Cambridgeshire until becoming pastor of Waterbeach Chapel. In December of 1857, Charles Spurgeon
promised his readers, “I shall soon issue a volume of my earliest productions, while Pastor of Waterbeach …”14
However, due to the “pressure of his rapidly-increasing work,”15 Spurgeon’s pre-London sermons were partially
revised but never published.16 Currently housed in the Heritage Room archives of Spurgeon’s College in London,
these eleven journals contain 1,395 handwritten pages that date between 1849 and 1854.17
Recent efforts to construct a three-dimensional portrait of Spurgeon18 warrant the need for a critical analysis of
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Spurgeon’s earliest sermons to be published. It is hoped that this project—a sampling of which is here presented—
will help scholars answer questions like, What influences and authors shaped Spurgeon’s earliest ministry?
How do his early sermons compare to his later ones? Did Spurgeon’s theology, preaching, rhetoric, or doctrinal
emphases change or remain constant? Answers to these questions will become more possible with the publications
of his earliest sermon efforts. It is becoming clear that Spurgeon did not arrive on the scene of mid-Victorian
evangelicalism perfect and polished. His earliest outlines and sermonettes reveal, instead, a preacher in process
whose exegesis, rhetoric, and homiletic habits evolved dynamically over the first four years of his ministry.
In Spring 2017, 160 years since Spurgeon attempted to publish his earliest sermons, B&H Academic will release
a multi-volume set that includes full-color facsimiles, transcriptions, contextual introductions, and editorial
annotations. The Lost Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon will add approximately 10% of material to Spurgeon’s total body
of literature and will constitute the first critical edition of any of Spurgeon’s works. The value of this publication
is multi-layered, and the volumes will be helpful to scholars, pastors, students and those interested in studying
Spurgeon. As Susannah Spurgeon commented,
The Outlines are valuable not only because of their intrinsic merits, but also as the
first products of the mind and heart which afterwards yielded so many thousands of
discourses to the Church and the world, for the glory of God and the good of men.19
Christian T. George, PhD (University of St. Andrews)
Curator of the Spurgeon Library
Assistant Professor of Historical Theology
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Kansas City, Missouri
[email protected]
1 David W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern
Britain: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody (Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 145. Timothy Larsen
also makes this claim in “Biblical Commentaries
as Prose” in Nineteenth-Century Prose, Vol. 39,
Number ½ Spring/Fall 2012, John Powell, guest
ed., 292.
2 Robert H. Ellison, The Victorian Pulpit: Spoken
and Written Sermons in Nineteenth-Century Britain
(London: Associated University Press, 1998), 48.
“The monotony of preaching had apparently become so severe that the word sermon had become
synonymous with ‘dull.’”
3 MTP 56:489.
4 On October 7, 1857, Queen Victoria sanctioned
a national “day of prayer and intercession for our
suffering countrymen” in India. A worship service was observed at the Crystal Palace in which
Charles Spurgeon preached to a crowd of 23,654
people (Arthur Christopher Benson and Viscount
Esher, eds., The Letters of Queen Victoria: A Selection from Her Majesty’s Correspondence between the
Years 1837 and 1861 Published by Authority of His
Majesty the King, vol. 3, 1854-1861 [London: John
Murray, 1908; repr., The Echo Library, 2010], 227).
5 Autobiography 4:291; Die Wunder unfres Hernn
und Heilandes in 52 Predigten von C. H. Spurgeon
(Hamburg: Verlagsbuchhandling von J. B. Oncken
Machfolger, 1897); ST 4:194; Walda Predifningar
af C. H. Spurgeon, Brebifant mib Metropolitan Tabernacle i London (Stockholm: B. Balmqmifts Förlag, 1867); The Dundee Weekly News, 6 February
1892 and Pulpito Metropolitano Do Revdo Carlos
Haddon Spurgeon (Spurgeon Scrapbooks, comp.
by Susannah Spurgeon, Heritage Room, Spurgeon’s
College, London).
4
6 ST 7:325; ST 5:514; The Hackney Mercury, 13 February 1892; ST 7:325; Autobiography 3:332; ibid., 334;
NPSP 4: preface; Autobiography 2:161. A man waiting to be lynched for his crime in Jamaica is quoted
as benefiting from a tract entitled “Christ the food
of the soul” that contained an excerpt of Spurgeon’s
sermon. An eyewitness recorded that Spurgeon’s sermon “had been a great blessing to him in his terrible
condition” (ST 7:18).
7 A. P. Peabody, “Spurgeon,” North American Review 86 (1858), 275.
8 Autobiography 4:183. This action would not have
been out of character for Queen Victoria. On
November 2, 1873, she attended a Presbyterian
service in the little church at Crathie, Scotland.
Unnoticed, she participated in the communion
ceremony and “stepped quietly among the communicants. Some of the congregation did not
observe her, so humbly and unobtrusively was it
done,” Chadwick, 2:320-21.
9 Spurgeon’s Sunday morning sermons were revised
and published; however, he often preached three
sermons or more per week. After his death in January 1892, Joseph Passmore and James Alabaster
continued the process of revising and publishing
the sermons Spurgeon had preached on Sunday
evening and throughout the week. These publications continued until 1917 when a shortage of
paper caused by World War I prevented further
printed. Only recently have Spurgeon’s missing
sermons from his London ministry been revised
and published. An additional forty-five sermons
were published in 2009 (See Terence Peter Crosby, C.H. Spurgeon’s Sermons Beyond, Volume 63,
An Authentic Supplement to the Metropolitan
Tabernacle Pulpit [Day One Publications, 2009]).
10 Eric W. Hayden, “Did You Know?” Christian History Issue 29, 10, no. 1: 2. In his Christian History
article, Eric Hayden notes the total number of
volumes in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. In actuality, the ninth edition contains
twenty-four volumes with the additional index
volume, not twenty-seven volumes as indicated in Hayden’s research and John Piper’s article “Preaching Through Adversity,” John Piper,
“Preaching Through Adversity,” Founder’s Journal, 23 (Winter 1996). For more information, see,
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/186618/
Encyclopaedia-Britannica/2107/Ninth-edition.
11 Carl. F. H. Henry in the foreword to Lewis Drum-
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
5
mond, Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers 3rd ed.
(Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1992).
Autobiography 1:199.
The Daily Telegraph, 1 February 1892.
The New Park Street Pulpit: Containing Sermons
Preached and Revised by the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon,
Minister of the Chapel (Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim
Publications, 2006), volume 3, preface.
Autobiography: 1:213.
After Spurgeon’s death, Susannah gathered materials to include in the four-volume autobiography
of her husband. Published in 1897, the first volume
contained a brief chapter entitled, “First Outlines
of Sermons” (See Chapter XX in Autobiography
1:213-226) in which she included a selection of her
husband’s earliest sermons. These included “Adoption” ( JN 1, Sermon No. 1), “Necessity of Purity for
an Entrance into Heaven” ( JN 1, Sermon No. 2),
“Abraham Justified by Faith,” ( JN 1, Sermon No.
3), “By Faith Jericho Fell” ( JN 2, Sermon No. 133,
Susannah also included a poem written by Spurgeon
for this sermon entitled “The Fall of Jericho”), “The
Church at Antioch” ( JN 3, Sermon No. 172), “Nowise
Cast Out” ( JN 4, Sermon No. 242). In Chapter XXV
(Autobiography 277-297), Susannah included three
additional sermonettes, “Christ our Surety” ( JN 5,
Sermon No. 143), “Christ is Precious” ( JN 6, Sermon
No. 311), and “Praise Ye the Lord” ( JN 7, Sermon
No. 327). Susannah also included facsimiles of the
title pages of JN 1 and 2.
By the time Spurgeon commenced writing Journal 1, he had already preached two sermons. Susannah recorded, “The first volume of Outlines
must have been commenced very soon after Mr.
Spurgeon began to preach, for the second written
in it was only the fourth discourse delivered by
the youthful evangelist. The text was Revelation
21:27, and it was preached at Barton, near Cambridge, on February 9th, 1851” (Autobiography
1:213).
See Tom Nettles, Peter Morden, Communion with
Christ and His People and Mark Hopkins, Nonconformity’s Romantic Generation: Evangelical and
Liberal Theologies in Victorian England in Studies
in Evangelical History and Thought (Waynesboro,
GA: Paternoster, 2004 and Timothy Larson, A
People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians
(Oxford University Press, 2011).
Autobiography, 1:212.
ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS
ATTACKING SPURGEON
"Last Sunday we devoted to the flames a large number of
copies of Spurgeon's sermons, and the pile was graced at the top
with a copy of 'Graves' Great Iron Wheel, which a Baptist friend
presented for the purpose. We trust that the works of the greasy
Cockney vociferator may receive the same treatment throughout
the south. And if the Pharisaical author should ever show himself
in these parts, we trust that a stout cord may speedily find its way
around his eloquent throat. He has proved himself a dirty, lowbred slanderer, and ought to be treated accordingly."
Spurgeon.—The Mississippi Baptist, the organ of the Baptist
denomination in this State, in its last issue, denounces Mr. Spurgeon for his recently written letter, and does it, too, in no dainty
terms. It hopes that no Southern Baptist will now purchase any
of that incendiary's books, and thus plainly enunciates its own
opinions on the slavery question:
"On the slavery question, we have now as we have ever had, but
one opinion. It is an institution of the Divine appointment. The
Bible, while it defines the duty of both master and slave, sanctions
the institution. Why then, should Mr. Spurgeon affect to be wiser
than the Author of the Bible?"
Mr. Humphrey Keeble, a highly respectable citizen of of [sic] Matthews county, Va.,
who was formerly an extravagant admirer
of Spurgeon, exposed, in front of the CourtHouse, and burnt to cinders, at the last
Matthews Court, six volumes of Spurgeon's
sermons. Many citizens of the highest standing assisted in the operation.
Spurgeon Rejected in
Virginia.—The Superintendent of
the Baptist Colportage in Virginia
has instructed the book agent of
the Sunday School and Publication
Board to send back all the copies
of Spurgeon's sermons ordered for
their colporters and now on hand.
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We agree with the Raleigh Register, that after this, any
bookseller who offers for sale a copy of any edition of Spurgeon's Sermons which is not already before the public, should
be arrested and tried for circulated incendiary publications.
We believe it to be the duty of all Southern booksellers to return every copy of Spurgeon's Sermons they may have on their
shelves to the houses at the North from whence they were purchased. We do further maintain, that the people of the South
ought not to enrich a man who entertains such abominable
sentiments towards them. We would like a good opportunity
at this hypocrite preacher who profains the sacred desk, in
preaching from it his fiendish sentiments, against our Constitution and citizens. We would extract a little of his pluck from
him with the toes of a pair of course pegged boots.
Spurgeon's Sermons in the South—Proposition to Burn
them Publicly.—The Montgomery (Alabama) Mail of January 7th
has the following curious item:
Spurgeon's Sermons—A Bonfire.— A gentleman of this city
requests us to invite, and we do hereby invite all persons in Montgomery who possess copies of the sermons of the notorious English
abolitionist, Spurgeon, to send them to the jail yard to be burned on
next Friday (this day week.) A subscription is also on foot to buy of
our booksellers all copies of said sermons now in their stores, to be
burnt on the same occasion. Does anybody say nay?
Mr. Spurgeon has been burned in effigy
in every slavingholding State in America.
His preaching in the States made him very
popular, and his sermons sold to the extent of
250,000 copies. On his pronouncing against
Slavery, however, and declaring that all men
are free and equal, a great change took place
in opinion. His sermons have been publicly
burned, their sale is “quite stopped,” and
there is no doubt that the free and enlightened citizens of the South would burn Mr.
Spurgeon himself with much pleasure.
The Christian Index says:—
“Our Southern Baptists will
not, hereafter, when they visit
London, desire to commune with
this prodigy of the nineteenth
century. We venture the prophecy
that his books in future will not
crowd the shelves of our Southern
book merchants. They will not;
they should not.”
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PREFACE
SPURGEON AND THE SBC: FROM OPPOSITION TO CELEBRATION
In 1859, an American minister named “Rev. H.” traveled to London to meet the famous pastor of the New Park
Street Chapel. When Charles Spurgeon discovered his guest was from Alabama, his “cordiality sensibly diminished.”
A six-month American preaching tour surely would expedite the construction of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, but
could Southerners tolerate Spurgeon’s stance against slavery? When Spurgeon asked his guest this question, the
Alabamian said he “had better not undertake it.”
This advice might have saved Spurgeon’s life. The same year, S. A. Corey, pastor of Eighteenth Street Baptist
Church in New York City, invited the twenty-four-year-old to preach at the Academy of Music opera house for
$10,000. News of Spurgeon’s visit was met with anticipation in the North and hostility in the South. According to
an Alabama newspaper, Spurgeon would receive a beating “so bad as to make him ashamed.” On February 17, 1860,
citizens of Montgomery, Alabama, publically protested the “notorious English abolitionist” by gathering in the jail
yard to burn his “dangerous books”:
Last Saturday, we devoted to the flames a large number of copies of Spurgeon’s Sermons. . . .
We trust that the works of the greasy cockney vociferator may receive the same treatment
throughout the South. And if the Pharasaical author should ever show himself in these parts,
we trust that a stout cord may speedily find its way around his eloquent throat.
On March 22, a “Vigilance Committee” in Montgomery followed suit and burned Spurgeon’s sermons in the
public square. A week later, Mr. B. B. Davis, the owner of a bookstore, prepared “a good fire of pine sticks” before
reducing about sixty volumes of Spurgeon’s sermons “to smoke and ashes.” British newspapers humored that
America had given Spurgeon a warm welcome – “a literally brilliant reception.”
Anti-Spurgeon bonfires illuminated jail yards, plantations, bookstores, and courthouses throughout the Southern
states. In Virginia, Mr. Humphrey H. Kuber, a Baptist preacher and “highly respectable citizen” of Matthews County,
burned seven calf-skinned volumes of Spurgeon’s sermons “on the head of a flour barrel.” The act of arson was
assisted by “many citizens of the highest standing.” In North Carolina, Spurgeon’s famous sermon “Turn or Burn”
found a similar fate when a Mr. Punch “turned the second page and burned the whole.”
By 1860, slave-owning pastors were “foaming with rage because they [could not] lay hands on the youthful
Spurgeon.” His life was threatened, his books burned, his sermons censured, and below the Mason Dixon Line,
the media catalyzed character assassinations. In Florida, Spurgeon was a “beef-eating, puffed-up, vain, overrighteous pharisaical, English blab-mouth.” In Virginia, he was a “fat, overgrown boy”; in Louisiana, a “helldeserving Englishman”; and in South Carolina, a “vulgar young man” with “(soiled) sleek hair, prominent teeth,
and a self-satisfied air.” Georgians were encouraged to “pay no attention to him.” North Carolinians “would like
a good opportunity at this hypocritical preacher” and resented his “fiendish sentiments, against our Constitution
and citizens.” The Weekly Raleigh Register reported that anyone selling Spurgeon’s sermons should be arrested and
charged with “circulating incendiary publications.”
Southern Baptists ranked among Spurgeon’s chief antagonists. The Mississippi Baptist hoped “no Southern Baptist
will now purchase any of that incendiary’s books.” The Baptist colporteurs of Virginia were forced to return all copies
of his sermons to the publisher. The Alabama Baptist and Mississippi Baptist “gave the Londoner 4,000 miles of an
awful raking” and “took the hide off him.” The Southwestern Baptist and other denominational newspapers took the
“spoiled child to task and administered due castigation.”
In the midst of this mayhem, Spurgeon attempted to publish several notebooks of sermons from his earliest
ministry. His promise to his readers in 1857 would not be fulfilled, however, due to his difficult life circumstances
in London. How poetic that 157 years after The Nashville Patriot slandered Spurgeon for his “meddlesome spirit,” a
publishing house from Nashville would complete the task he failed to accomplish. How symmetrical that Spurgeon’s
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early sermons would be published, not by Alabaster and Passmore in London, but by Americans. And not only
Americans, but Southern Americans. And not only Southern Americans, but Southern Baptist Americans with the
baggage of their bespeckled beginnings.
As a Southern Baptist from Alabama, my bias should be obvious. If, however, over the multi-year release of
these sermons it should become difficult to discern, allow me to confess it presently. I have spent the majority of
my vocational life studying Spurgeon. I have found in him (and share with him) a genuine commitment to making
Jesus Christ known to the nations. Like him, I too am deeply invested in the church and claim the same evangelical
impulses that fueled Spurgeon’s ministry. I admire his stance for social justice, love for the marginalized, and
commitment to biblical orthodoxy.
Spurgeon’s language is not always theologically precise. At times, his colorful, allegorical, and experimental
rhetoric make academic treatments challenging. However, Spurgeon was not a theologian in the systematic sense
and never claimed to be. He was a preacher. And as such, his ultimate concern was not crafting perfect manuscripts
– though he spent a great deal of time redacting his sermons for publication. His greatest concern was, as his famous
title hinted, becoming a Soul Winner. With pen and pulpit, Spurgeon surrendered his literary and intellectual abilities
for the service of the church. His uncanny gift for rendering complex ideas in the vernacular of the working class
distinguished him from many of his contemporaries and gave him instant audiences.
Spurgeon’s preaching emerged, not in the ivory towers of Cambridge, but in the lowly villages surrounding it.
Spurgeon was more concerned with feeding sheep than giraffes. Spurgeon started his ministry as a country, not city,
preacher. His congregants at Waterbeach Chapel were farmers and laborers. Even after moving to London, Spurgeon
retained his early earthy idioms and used illustrations common to the Victorian experience.
His preaching flourished in cholera-ravaged Southwark near London’s warehouses, distilleries, and factories.
This gave Spurgeon a pulse on the population that, when combined with his own physical and mental ailments,
produced a level of empathy uncommon to his contemporaries. Spurgeon never suffered from having never suffered.
His sermons resonate deeply with those in pain – no matter the variety. In 2013, his earliest sermons also affected
me. At the height of a series of surgeries, my eyes chanced upon a phrase he wrote in Notebook 1: “Think much on
grace, Christian.” Over the twelve months of my recovery, this challenging phrase brought such encouragement and
spiritual solace that I doubt it will be forgotten.
Whenever new discoveries are made – whether lost diaries, letters, hymns, poems, or sermons – there is an
opportunity to further our knowledge of a particular subject or person. In 2011, there were only two doctoral
students in the world writing on Spurgeon. Today, roughly two dozen are entering the field. Much work is yet to be
done. Caverns of untapped resources await exploration. My hope is that the publication of Spurgeon’s lost sermons
will inspire future generations of scholars and pastors to mine the theological treasures still untapped.
I am also hopeful that this project will promote a reinvigorated sense of unity, mission, and Christian witness
among the 50,000 churches of the Southern Baptist Convention. The recent surge of interest in Spurgeon could and
should be leveraged for the kingdom. Spurgeon can become an agent of healing. Everyone can – and does – claim
him, regardless of theological stripe, tribe, or camp. Spurgeon’s appeal extends, not only across denominational
barriers, but also into the broader evangelical tradition. With the upcoming accessibility of Spurgeon’s sermons on
the revamped website www.spurgeon.org, and also with the advances in scholarship at The Spurgeon Library of
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, younger and older generations face exciting new opportunities to stand
together as a witness to the world in celebration of what God has accomplished in history. Who knows? Perhaps it
was for this very reason that these sermons were lost in the nineteenth century and found in the twenty-first.
In 1860, an article entitled “Mr. Spurgeon and the American Slaveholders” offered the following words:
Southern Baptists will not, hereafter, when they visit London, desire to commune with this
prodigy of the nineteenth century. We venture the prophecy that his books in [the] future
will not crowd the shelves of our Southern book merchants. They will not; they should not.
In 1889, Spurgeon uttered a prophecy of his own: “For my part, I am quite willing to be eaten of dogs for the next
fifty years; but the more distant future shall vindicate me.”
The more distant future did vindicate Spurgeon. His sermons do crowd the shelves of Southern bookstores. As
Carl F. H. Henry rightly noted, Spurgeon has become “one of evangelical Christianity’s immortals.” Throughout
Alabama, Virginia, and the United States of America, the books of “the notorious English abolitionist” still burn –
casting light and life in this dark and dying world.
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After the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Spurgeon’s reputation improved among Southern Baptists. Many
of their churches were named after Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, like Mark Dever’s Capitol Hill Baptist
Church in Washington, D. C., which originally was called “Metropolitan Baptist Church.” Southern Baptists like John
A. Broadus, founder of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, flocked to Elephant &
Castle to hear Spurgeon preach. After his 1891 visit, he said, “The whole thing – house, congregation, order, worship,
preaching, was as nearly up to my ideal as I ever expect to see in this life.” In June 1884, the faculty of that seminary
penned a collective letter of commendation to Spurgeon:
We thank God for all that he made you and has by his grace enabled you to become and
achieve. We rejoice in your great and wonderful work as preacher and pastor, and through
your Orphanage and your Pastor’s College; as also your numerous writings, so sparkling
with genius, so filled with the spirit of the gospel . . . . And now, honored brother, we
invoke upon you the continued blessings of our covenant God. May your life and health be
long spared, if it be his will; may Providence still smile on your varied work, and the Holy
Spirit richly bless your spoken and written messages to mankind.
In 1892, B. H. Caroll, founder of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, reflected
on Spurgeon’s enduring legacy: “The fire has tried his work. It abides unconsumed.” He added, “When Bonaparte
died, Phillips said: ‘He is fallen.’ When Spurgeon died, the world said: ‘He is risen.’” The notable Baptist theologian
Augustus Hopkins Strong had such admiration for Spurgeon that, on June 17, 1887, he brought John D. Rockefeller to
London to meet him. After two hours of fellowship, the two Americans concluded that “the secret of Mr. Spurgeon’s
success was his piety and his faith. Above all else, he seemed to be a man of prayer.”
In 1934, George W. Truett, pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, was the only speaker invited to deliver a
fifty-five minute plenary address at the Royal Albert Hall in London for the centenary of Spurgeon’s birth. Truett’s
successor at First Baptist Dallas, W. A. Criswell, once claimed that Spurgeon was “the greatest preacher who has
ever lived.” He added, “When I get to Heaven, after I see the Saviour and my own dear family, I want to see Charles
Haddon Spurgeon.” Billy Graham once applauded Spurgeon for being “a preacher who extolled Christ – everlastingly.”
Charles Spurgeon has come to America. Through the rotations of a thousand gears of grace, his early sermons
have spanned a century and a sea to be read by new audiences. Like Abel, who “still speaks, even though he is dead”
(Hebrews 11:4), Spurgeon still has something to say. “I would fling my shadow through eternal ages if I could,” he
once declared. And indeed, his shadow has spilled into our age. Few preachers are as frequently cited, “memed,”
tweeted, quoted (and misquoted) as Spurgeon is. Future historians will be right to see the publication of his Lost
Sermons as belonging to an extraordinary and unexpected narrative of redemption.
In my estimation, the publication of these sermons will reach full potential when it guides readers not just to
Spurgeon but through Spurgeon to Jesus Christ. Insomuch as John the Baptist’s words become our own, “[Christ]
must increase, but I must decrease” ( John 3:30, ESV); and insomuch as the sermons inform minds, reform hearts,
and transform lives, then the energy will be worth the expenditure, and future generations will glimpse, not only
Spurgeon’s shadow, but the Son that caused the shadow.
B. H. Carroll once said, “The great crying want of this day in our churches is fire.” If we, too, share in a desire for
spiritual fire, then Helmut Thielicke’s words about Spurgeon prove promising: “This bush from old London still
burns and shows no sign of being consumed.”
Christian T. George, PhD (University of St. Andrews)
Curator of the Spurgeon Library
Assistant Professor of Historical Theology
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Kansas City, Missouri
[email protected]
10
11
12
Blow ye the trumpet in Zion1 / Ye shall mount us on Wings of Eagles2 / Holiness unto the
Lord3 / I am ever with you even unto the end of the World4 / JUBILEE5 / Jesus Christ and
him crucified6
Skeletons – I to LXXVII. And only skeletons without the Holy Ghost.7
Not unto us. Not unto us, but unto thy name be all the Glory.8 / Who maketh his angels
spirits His ministers a flame of Fire9 / peace / FREE GRACE10
By grace I am what I am.11 / Where is boasting then? It is excluded.12 /
Less than the least of all Saints13
Designed & Engraved by William Smith.14
13
14
5
Condescending Love of Jesus
2 Corinthians 8:915
“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for
your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”
I. The glorious Person & his exalted state.
α.
16
The son of God. Ruler of the universe. God.
β.
Rich in glory, authority, power, felicity.
Residence: Heaven. Servants, angels. A crowned monarch.17
II. The gracious act. “Became poor.”
α.
In the act of putting on humanity.18
β.
He was poor all his life time.
γ.He died a criminal. Owed his burial to charity. Affliction. Pain. Hunger.
Temptation. Fatigue. Agony. Death.
III. The persons for whom. “For our sake.”
1.
His own creatures.
2.
Guilty, hell deserving sinners.
3.His own murderers. About to perish. The vilest of the vile. Mary.19 The thief.20
Saul.21
IV. The purpose. “That ye through his poverty may be rich.”
a.
We gain liberty.
b.
Life is spared.
c.
Deliverance from sin. Pardon.
d.
All things richly to enjoy, and heaven.
He gained our lost inheritance. More wealthy are we than the possessor of India’s
golden mines.22
Of his own will. “He became.” 23
Comberton. March 9. 5124
15
16
9Sinners25 Must Be Punished
Psalm 9:1726
“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”
I. The Persons.
1.“The wicked.”27 All who have broken God’s commandments.28 Recapitulation of
the law. Thought, imagination, word, act. All men who are not converted.
2.
“Forget.” Not think, serve, seek, love him.
II. Doom. “Turned into hell.” Awful.
III. Reasons for this.
1.
Because sin must be punished.
2.
Hell is the most fitting place for sinners.
3.
No other place for them.
4.
Mercy has had its day.
5.The sinner can bring no excuse. Not Ignorance, nor forgetfulness, want of heart,
nor want of time. Nor part obedience. Nor the hardness of the law.
Barton. May 18/185129
Mrs. Spalding converted.30 10031
17.10032
17
18
54
The Little Fire & Great Combustion
James 3:533
“Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things.
Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”
The apostle, speaking of the influence of so small a34 member as the tongue, compares it to
a fire: small in beginnings, but none can tell how great in the end. Thus, it may be said of the
influence both of good & evil.
I.35 Good. Many useful things: river,36 mustard seed,37 &c., do so.
1.
I n the world. All38 great and good enterprizes have had small beginnings as the
Gospel. Missionary Society,39 Sabbath Schools,40 establishment of churches in
heathen countries.
2.
I n the man. Grace is small and weak at first. Little love, little knowledge. But
it spreads and fires the whole. Our earth ‘tis but the smoking flax41 in heaven.
Eternal noon.42
3.
y a man. Individually, little can be done. But that little is a little fire. Newton’s
B
mother.43 Luther,44 John Berridge45 in Waterbeach, Praying men. By the word in
season. By work for God. By prayer.
II. Evil, like fire, increases. Fires in America.46
1. 47In the world. Adam and Eve did a small action,48 and yet, how great as earth’s sin
and hell’s torment witness. Mahometanism.49
2.
I n the man. Evil is progressive. Great crimes succeed to small. Hazael,50 anger,
wars, vile murders. Men do habitually what they once trembled of.
3. Individual influence, for evil is great. Tom Paine.51 John Smith.52 Priest in Lucerne.53
1.54 Let us not fear for the cause of God.
2.
Let the humble rejoice in what God does in them and by them.
3.
Let us beware of sin.
77
(Mr. Charles converted)55
19
20
96
The Rending of the Veil 56
Mark 15:3857
“And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the tope to the bottom.”
The vail58 was one partition betwixt the Holy and most Holy place. It was to keep from the
eyes of the worshippers the things most holy when the high priest went in thither to accomplish the service of God.59 It is described [in] Ex. 26.31.33.60 Mentioned [in] Lev. 16.2.,61
[and] 2 Chron. 3.14.62 It was made of blue, purple, and crimson, and fine, twined linen,
embroidered with figures of cherubim, “to show,” says Bunyan, “that as the angels are with
us here, and wait upon us all the days of our pilgrimage in this world so when we die, they
stand ready, even at the vail at the door of heaven, to come, when bid, to fetch us and carry
us away into Abraham[’]s bosom. Luke 16.22.”63 It was a very thick piece of tapestry. A hand
breadth is said to be its thickness by one of the Rabbis.64 Of immense length, even forty
cubits, the breadth being twenty. This gorgeous and immense piece of tapestry was rent
in sunder from the top to the bottom in the midst (as Luke adds),65 just when Jesus died.
Because:
I. Of the death of such a66 one, Jesus Christ.
1. It was a solemn act of mourning for his67 death, and horror at the blasphemous
wickedness of the murder. The temple,68 the sun, the earth, the rocks supplied
mourners for his funeral.
2.It was rent, too, as an instance of his majesty. Even when in misery, the dying
God-man did what living man could not do.69
21
22
3.The vail of the temple was the barrier to the Holy place, and until rent, none
could even look within so until this moment when Christ expired.70 the or71
Unless he had died, none could have entered heaven, or the way of life.72
II. At that moment, the Mosaic system died.
1.This rending of so conspicuous an object was an excellent representative of the
passing away of the whole. This, being the time of sacrifice, the Priest was, at this
moment, standing by the brazen altar, which was situated near the vail.73 And
as the day was a74 high one, probably Caiaphas75 was then sacrificing. This, then,
would be a very conspicuous transaction.
2.
I t showed that God, at that moment, had withdrawn his presence from the Holy of
Holies. That it was no longer sacred. God had now no peculiar place for dwelling
in on earth.
3.The Jewish nation had, as it were, been God’s Sanctum Sanctorum.76 But the rent
vail threw down the partition and gave Gentiles communion with them. He hath
made both one.77
III. The Birth of the Gospel took place at that instant. The renting of the vail, just at its78
birth was prophetic:
1.Of the fuller revelation of Gospel Heavenly79
23
24
mysteries. The things hidden are now laid open.80 The law was a system of
mysteries and shadows.81 Our[s]of revelations and light.82 The vail is rent.
2.Of the access with boldness83 the sons of God enjoy. Then, only the high priest84
once a year could enter.85 Now, we all are kings and priests86 unto God, and may at
all times enter in.
3.Of the sweet union between the saint and God.87 There is now no separation.88
We are one with God.89
4.Of the reception saints now receive when they die. They can enter heaven.90
The vail is rent. They have none who can debar their entrance.
IV. From that time, the destruction of Jerusalem was certain.91 And this was a sort of
prophecy of it.
1.No privileges, ordinances,92 knowledge, will save men. The temple is no bulwark.
God rends its vail.93
2.Judgment begins at the house of God.94 Yea, and in the very centre of the house.
Even this must all come down. Where shall the ungodly appear?
3.God pays wrath at first by small installments. First, the veil is rent. Then the
temple. So now, the man has some foretaste of future destruction.
___________________________________________________________________________
1. Poor sinner, there is no vail. Enter, cry. It is rent from top to bottom. Not a small hole.95
Nothing obstructs.
2. Christian, go boldly. Live in communion with God. Have hope to enter heaven, but all
by the rent vail. No way to see mysteries but through this rent.
126.451.
25
Spurgeon preaching from one of his journals
26
First journal
27
NOTES
1 Joel 2:1.
2 Isa 40:31.
3 Zech 14:20.
4 Matt 28:20.
5 Charles may have Lev 25:9 in mind: “Then shalt
thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound
on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the
day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet
sound throughout all your land.”
6 By positioning “Jesus Christ & him crucified” (1
Cor 2:12) after the bell of the jubilee trumpet,
Charles may have in mind the atoning sacrifice
of Jesus Christ foreshadowed in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament.
7 Susannah includes a facsimile of this page in Autobiography 1:215. This sentiment is echoed in
the prayers Charles wrote in his notebooks, e.g.,
“Holy Spirit, blow through me!” (Notebook
3, Sermon No. 174). See also “A Most Needful
Prayer Concerning the Holy Spirit” (MTP 16,
Sermon No. 954) and “The Paraclete” (MTP
18, Sermon No. 1074). Zachery W. Eswine has
offered a helpful thesis on Spurgeon’s Pneumatology in “The Role of the Holy Spirit in the
Preaching Theory and Practice of Charles Haddon Spurgeon” (PhD diss., Regent University,
2003).
8 Ps 115:1.
9 The sketches within the notebook have influenced the Scripture verses Charles has selected.
In this case, it is the angel described in Ps 104:4.
10 Charles may have Rom 3:24 in mind: “Being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The positioning of this phrase may hold importance.
28
Angelically delivered in the direction of
Charles’s sketch of the cross and crown, “FREE
GRACE” is only accomplished through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The
following entry in his diary suggests that free
grace has become a theme in Charles’s life in
the months leading up to the writing of this
notebook: “Free grace, sovereign love, eternal security are my safeguards” (May 25, 1850,
Autobiography 1:140). This phrase appears
throughout this notebook. Cf. “Free Grace,”
Sermon No. 13. On the title page of Notebook
2, Charles wrote, “Grace through Jesus to me,
to sinner[s]. Praise ought to and shall be given
to God’s free grace & unchanging love…”
11 1 Cor 15:10.
12 Rom 3:27.
13 Eph 3:8
14 Charles may have purchased this notebook
from Cambridge bookseller William Haddon
Smith, the precursor to WH Smith. The entry
“Smith William Haddon (and news agent), 7
Rose crescent” appears in Slater’s Royal National and Commercial Directory and Topography of the Counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Lincolnshire,
Norfolk, Northamptonshire, and Suffolk (Printed
and Published by Isaac Slater, Manchester and
London, 1850). Cambridgeshire Collection,
Cambridge. It is possible that each of the notebooks originated from this bookseller. In 1853,
“Smith W.H. & Son” still resided at “7 Rose
cres,” according to The Post Office Directory of
Cambridgeshire: With a Map Expressly Engraved
for the Work (Second Ed. London: Kelly and
Co., 1853), 111.
15 Charles preached six additional sermons on 2
Cor 8:9: “The Condescension of Christ” (NPSP
3, Sermon No. 151), “Christ’s Motive and Ours”
(MTP 37, Sermon No. 2232), “Poverty and Riches” (MTP 40, Sermon No. 2364), “Knowing and
Doing” (MTP 54, Sermon No. 3092), and “Our
Lord’s Voluntary Poverty” (MTP 59, Sermon
No. 3380). The first of these sermons bears the
most resemblance to the above outline with
the exception that Charles forms his first and
second primary divisions after his fourth in the
above outline: “The purpose. ‘that ye through
his poverty may be rich.’” See also Charles’s discussion of the condescension of Christ in Good
Tidings of Great Joy: Christ’s Incarnation, the
Foundation of Christianity (London: Passmore
and Alabaster, 1901, The Spurgeon Library,
MBTS), 43-46, 116-118, 131.
16 Charles used four types of numbering techniques in this sermon: Greek letters (alpha,
beta, gamma), Roman numerals, English letters, and English numbers. The reason for his inconsistency is not evident, nor is this technique
unique to this sermon. An additional example is
found in “Christian Prosperity and Its Causes”
(Notebook 1, Sermon No. 51).
17 On numerous occasions throughout his ministry, Charles referenced the kingship of Jesus
Christ in monarchial terms. See MTP 11:700;
19:57; 49:134; 12:77; 46:474; 62:591.
18Cf. MTP 36:493.
19 Charles is referring here to Mary Magdalene.
See Luke 8:2.
20 Cf. Luke 23:32-43.
21 Cf. Acts 7:58-60, 8:1-3, 22:20.
22 Britain first became aware of gold deposits in
the Province of Malabar, India, in 1792 (Rade
Shyam Rungta, Rise of Business Corporations
in India: 1851-1900 [South Asian Studies, London and New York: Syndics of the Cambridge
University Press, 1970], 136). The rush that followed in southern India resulted in the mining
of 2.5 million sovereigns from 1851-1885 (Moreton Frewen, “The Drain of Gold to India” in
The Nineteenth Century and After XIX-XX, A
Monthly Review Founded by James Knowles
Vol. LXXIII [New York: Leonard Scott Publication Co., London: Spottiswoode & Co. Lts.,
Printers, January-June 1913], 61). For references
by Charles about the British occupation of India
and the use of its natural resources, see “Independence of Christianity” (NPSP 3, Sermon
No. 149) and Speeches at Home and Abroad, 120.
In addition to the gold mines of India, Charles
also referenced the gold mines of Peru (MTP
44:302) and California (MTP 21:662).
23 Six dots appear above the sentence “Of his own
will. ‘He became.’” Charles used these ellipses
to signal the conclusion of this sermon.
24The numbers “9” and “1” are written after
“March 9.51” The significance of these numbers
is not obvious but possibly suggest that Charles
preached this sermon on both March 1 and 9.
The stippling surrounding these numbers has
been smudged. Unlike the ellipses two lines
above, the dots here likely reflect a pause in
his thinking. This literary feature continues
throughout the sermons and is consistent with
the marginal notations in Notebook 2:79 and
Notebook 4:188, 190.
25 Charles originally wrote the word “Sinner’s.”
The apostrophe before the final “s” has been
scribbled out in pencil to make the word plural
and not possessive. If the apostrophe is retained,
it is possible that Charles may have intended to
write, “Sinner’s Punishment” before writing the
words “Must Be Punished.”
26 On Nov. 4, 1860, Charles preached an additional
sermon on Psalm 9:17 entitled “Tender Words
of Terrible Apprehension” (NPSP 6, Sermon
No. 344). The overlapping content and structural similarities do not suggest that Charles had
the earlier outline in mind when constructing
the latter.
27 Quotation marks have been added around “The
wicked” in this line and around “forget” in the
line below for consistency with Charles’s second primary division, “II. Doom. ‘Turned into
hell.’ Awful.”
29
28 Charles originally spelled the word “commadments.” The letter “n” is inserted in pencil between the letters “a” and “d” as indicated by a
caret. The correction is likely in the hand of
Charles. A dark, yellow dot appears beneath the
“t.” This is likely the result of the aging process
of the manuscript.
29 The number “1851” is written in pencil and prefaced with a forward slash.
30 “Mrs. Spalding” is the first recorded conversion
in Charles’s pastorate at Waterbeach Chapel.
The 1851 Census reveals thirty-three “Spaldings” from Cambridgeshire. Though Charles
does not mention Mrs. Spalding by name in his
later sermons and writings, this woman is likely
the one referenced in his Autobiography and in
Lectures to My Students, Vol. 1 (94-95). Given the
significance of this event to the sermon above,
Charles’s account of her from his autobiography
is included at length. “How my heart leaped for
joy when I heard tidings of my first convert! I
could never be satisfied with a full congregation,
and the kind expressions of friends: I longed to
hear that hearts had been broken, that tears had
been seen streaming from the eyes of penitents.
How I did rejoice, as one that findeth great spoil,
one Sunday afternoon, when my good deacon
said to me, ‘God has set His seal on your ministry
in this place, sir.’ Oh, if anybody had said to me,
‘Someone has left you twenty thousand pounds,’
I should not have given a snap of my fingers for
it, compared with the joy which I felt when I
was told that God had saved a soul through my
ministry! ‘Who is it?’ I asked. ‘Oh, it is a poor
labouring man’s wife over at such-and-such a
place! She went home broken-hearted by your
Sermon two or three Sundays ago, and she has
been in great trouble of soul, but she has found
peace, and she says she would like to speak to
you.’ I said, ‘Will you drive me over there? I must
go to see her;’ and early on the Monday morning
I was driving down to the village my deacon had
mentioned, to see my first spiritual child. I have
in my eye now the cottage in which she lived;
believe me, it always appears picturesque. I felt
30
like the boy who has earned his first guinea, or
like a diver who has been down to the depths of
the sea, and brought up a rare pearl. I prize each
one whom God has given me, but I prize that
woman most. Since then, my Lord has blessed me to many thousands of souls, who have
found the Saviour by hearing or reading words
which have come from my lips. I have had a great
many spiritual children born of the preaching
of the Word, but I still think that woman was
the best of the lot. At least, she did not live long
enough for me to find many faults in her. After
a year or two of faithful witness-bearing, she
went home, to lead the way for a goodly number
who have followed her. I remember well her
being received into the church, and dying, and
going to Heaven. She was the first seal to my
ministry, and a very precious one. No mother
was ever more full of happiness at the sight of
her first-born son. Then could I have sung the
song of the Virgin Mary, for my soul did magnify the Lord for remembering my low estate,
and giving me the great honour to do a work for
which all generations should call me blessed,
for so I counted and still count the conversion
of one soul” (Autobiography 1:232-33).
31 The handwriting within the box is noticeably
different in size and characteristic. A comparison of the “m” in the word “Mrs.” and in the
word “May” on the same line reveals the contrast. Whereas the in the later, the “M” slants
dynamically to the right and contains a well-defined bracket at the baseline of the letter, the
“M” in the former word contains no bracket
and instead contains an exaggerated looped
ascender above the x-height on the stem of the
letter. A similar disparity in handwriting can
also be found in the sermon “Hew Down the
Tree” (Notebook 4, Sermon No. 215 with the
words, “Cottenham. Young man brought out.
360” and in the sermon “I Have Found a Ransom” (Notebook 4, Sermon No. 224).
32 A series of ink smudges appears beneath the
numbers “17. 100.” They are likely accidental.
33 This is the only time Charles preached a sermon
on Jas 3:5. For sermons with similar motifs, see:
“Brand Plucked from the Fire” (Notebook 5,
Sermon No. 242), “Perpetual Fire” (Notebook
8, Sermon No. 363), “Fire! Fire! Fire!” (MTP
7, Sermon No. 397), “Ship on Fire – A Voice
of Warning” (MTP 10, Sermon No. 550), “The
Barley-Field on Fire” (MTP 10, Sermon No. 563),
“Fire – The Want of Our Times” (MTP 15, Sermon No. 854), “The World on Fire” (MTP 19,
Sermon No. 1125), “God’s Fire and Hammer”
(MTP 42, Sermon No. 2461), “Lessons from the
Malta Fire” (MTP 55, Sermon No. 3135), and
“God’s Firebrands” (MTP 57, Sermon No. 3233).
34 Charles originally wrote the word, “as.” If retained, Charles may have intended to say, “The
apostle, speaking of the influence of so small as
[the] member [of ] the tongue…”
35 Given the lack of space allocated for the first
Roman numeral, Charles likely added it afterwards.
36 Cf. Isa 35:6; John 7:38.
37 Cf. Matt 17:20; Luke 17:6.
38 An illegible letter appears beneath the “a” in
“all.” If it is an “m,” Charles may have intended
to write the word “most” instead of “all.”
39 Originally titled the “Particular Baptist Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the
Heathen,” the Baptist Missionary Society was
founded by William Carey and thirteen others,
including Andrew Fuller and Samuel Pearce,
on October 2, 1792. An account of this society
that Charles may have been familiar with is
Francis Augustus Cox, History of the English
Baptist Society, 1792 to 1842 (Boston, MA: Isaac
Tompkins, 1844). Charles would later address
the Baptist Missionary Society on numerous
occasions, e.g., April 28, 1858, “The Desolations
of the Lord, The Consolations of His Saints”
(NPSP 4, Sermon No. 190).
40 Prior to preaching in the Preacher’s Association
throughout Cambridgeshire, Charles had taught
children in a Sabbath School at St. Andrews’s
Street Chapel (Autobiography 1:38; 191).
41 Cf. Isa 42:3; Matt 12:20. See also, “Smoking
Flax” (MTP 31, Sermon No. 1831).
42 An alternative interpretation of this line is, “Our
earth ‘tis but the smoking flax in heaven[’s] eternal noon.”
43 Charles is referring here to Elizabeth Newton,
the mother of John Newton, who played a significant role in the spiritual formation of her
son. See Dennis R. Hillman, ed., Out of the
Depths by John Newton (Grand Rapids, MI:
Kregel Publications, 2003), 20.
44It is unclear as to what episode in Martin Luther’s life, if any, Charles is referring to here.
Given his reference to John Newton’s mother,
it is possible that he has Luther’s mother, Margarette, in mind.
45John Berridge (1716-1793) was an Anglican
preacher, Vicar of Everton, and contemporary
of George Whitefield. Charles is referring to the
season in Berridge’s ministry when he preached
in Waterbeach. For an account of his preaching,
see Richard Whittingham, The Works of John
Berridge With An Enlarged Memoir of His Life
(London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Company,
1838). Charles later wrote a chapter on Berridge
in Eccentric Preachers (London: Passmore and
Alabaster, 1879), 125-130.
46Charles may be referencing the fires in Philadelphia, New York, and New Jersey that British newspapers covered around the time he
preached from the above outline. See Dundee,
Perth, and Cupar Advertiser, “Fires in America,” July 26, 1850. No. 2781.
47 Charles originally wrote the Roman numeral
“I.”
48 Cf. Gen 3:6.
49 Charles is making reference to Islam, the religion of the prophet Mahomet, or Muhammad.
By the time Charles preached this sermon, the
British were aware of the spread of Islam. According to John Gibson Cazenove, books that
“bore reference to the person and the creed of
Mohamet” were often found “If, gazing upon
31
the shelves of a well-stocked library” ( John Gibson Cazenove, Mahometanism (London: J. And
C. Mozley, 1856), 9. For additional references
to Islam in Charles’s later sermons, see: MTP
27:253; 34:322; 36:246.
50Charles is making reference here to the King
of Damascus that God instructed the prophet
Elijah to anoint. See 1 Kgs 19:15.
51 Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an American
political activist and philosopher (see Harvey
J. Kaye, Thomas Paine: Firebrand of the Revolution [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000]).
In his book The Age of Reason, Paine mounted
an attack on institutional religion and the veritability and authority of Holy Scripture. For additional references to Paine in Charles’s later sermons, see NPSP 7:373; MTP 9:518,; MTP 12:174;
MTP 14:347; MTP 24:333; and MTP 44:522.
52 It is likely that Charles is using the name “John
Brown” in the generic sense as a place holder
as he does throughout his later ministry. See
MTP 35:286; MTP 36:364; and MTP 42:567. An
exception to this is found in the reference to
one “John Smith,” who served as the editor of
The Glasgow Examiner and indirectly labeled
Charles a “quack” after he preached in Scotland
(Autobiography 2:112).
53 Though not a priest, it is possible that Charles is
making reference here to Constantin SiegwartMüller (1801-1869), a politician and conservative Catholic advocate, originally affiliated
with the ultramontane Party in Switzerland
before being elected as the Schultheiss of the
Lucerne state council. His efforts at reestablishing conservative Catholicism resulted in
the readmission of the Jesuits into Lucerne
(“Constantin Siegwart-Muller.” Encyclopædia
Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015). Charles
may have read about the Sonderbund War,
which ended shortly before he preached the
above sermon. In his later ministry, Charles
traveled through Lucerne with his wife and
two friends, though he did not meet a priest or
even attend church because of the relic of John
32
the Baptist’s head on display. He commented,
“Though I have a great respect for that Baptist,
and all other Baptists, I do not think I could
have controlled myself sufficiently to worship
God under such circumstances” (Autobiography 2: 370).
54 Charles originally wrote a line before the word
“Let” to indicate the presence of a primary division (Cf. Sermon No. 1). The number “1” is
inserted over the line to signal the beginning of
a list. It is also possible that Charles intended
to strike through the “1”; however, given the
additional numbers “2” and “3,” this is unlikely.
55 The handwriting differs from that of the outline and was likely added later. Also, it appears
that Charles inserted a closing parenthesis after “converted.” Charles does not provide additional information to aid in identifying “Mr
Charles.”
56 Charles borrows heavily in this outline from
John Bunyan’s On the Spiritualizing of Solomon’s
Temple, Section LVII, “Of the Vail of the Temple” ( John Bunyan, The Works of John Bunyan
[London: Blackie and Sons, 1856]). Charles did
not use Bunyan’s primary divisions; however,
the overlapping content is, in many places, verbatim and will be quoted below. Charles did not
follow Bunyan’s spiritualizations on every point.
One noticeable contrast is seen in Bunyan’s
comparison of the veil to that of the “visible
heavens” that Christ passed through during his
ascension” (Bunyan, 498). Later in his ministry,
Charles commended Bunyan’s spiritualization
to his students, saying, “You may allow much
latitude in spiritualizing to men of rare poetical temperament, such as John Bunyan… Mr.
Bunyan is the chief, and head, and lord of all allegorists, and is not to be followed by us into the
deep places of typical and symbolic utterances.
He was a swimmer, we are but mere waders, and
must not go beyond our depth” (Lectures to My
Students, Vol. 1:112-114).
57 On March 25, 1888, Charles preached a sermon
on the comparable texts of Matt 27:50-51 and
Heb 10:19-20 entitled, “The Rent Veil” (MTP
34, Sermon No. 2015). The primary divisions are
not similar; however, substantial overlapping
content suggests that Charles may have had the
above outline in mind during the writing of his
later sermon.
58 The spelling of “vail” is not consistent throughout this outline. Whereas Charles spelled it
“Veil” in his title, in the body of the outline, he
followed Bunyan’s spelling.
59 “The vail of the temple was one partition, betwist the holy and the most holy place; and I
take it, it was to keep from the sight of the worshippers the things most holy when the highpriest went in thither, to accomplish the service
of God. Exod. xxvi.33” (Bunyan, 498).
60Exod 26:31-33, “And thou shalt make a vail of
blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined
linen of cunning work: with cherubims shall it
be made: And thou shalt hang it upon four pillars
of shittim wood overlaid with gold: their hooks
shall be of gold, upon the four sockets of silver.
And thou shalt hang up the vail under the taches,
that thou mayest bring in thither within the vail
the ark of the testimony: and the vail shall divide
unto you between the holy place and the most
holy.”
61 Lev 16:2, “And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak
unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all
times into the holy place within the vail before
the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die
not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy
seat.”
622 Chr 3:14, “And he made the vail of blue,
and purple, and crimson, and fine linen, and
wrought cherubims thereon.”
63 The entire quotation is, “Upon the vail of the
temple there were also the figures of cherubims wrought, that is, of angels; to show, that
as angels are with us here, and wait upon us
all the days of our pilgrimage in this world; so
when we die, they stand ready, even at the vail,
at the door of these heavens, to come when bid,
to fetch us, and carry us away into Abraham’s
bosom. Luke xvi.22” (Bunyan, 498). Though
found at the conclusion of Bunyan’s quotation,
Charles did not include “Luke 16.22” within the
quotation marks.
64The son of Gamaliel from Acts 5:34. Rabbi
Simeon bar-Gamaliel, wrote, “The veil was a
handsbreadth thick, and was woven on a loom
of seventy-two cords” ( Jacob Nuesner, trans.,
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, A Preliminary
Translation and Explanation [Chicago and London: The Chicago University Press, 1991, Vol. 15,
Sheqalim, 160]). It is possible that the “handsbreadth” had come into common knowledge
by the time Charles preached this sermon.
65 Charles is incorrect if he is stating that Luke
mentioned the detail about the veil being torn
from top to bottom. It is found only in Matthew
and Mark (Matt 27:51; Mark 15:38). Charles is
likely referencing, as he does in his 1888 sermon,
the fact that the veil was torn “in the midst”
(Luke 23:45). See also MTP 34:173.
66 Charles originally wrote the word “an” instead
of the article, “a.”
67 An illegible letter is written beneath the “h” in
“his.”
68 “…the temple, when it beheld its Master die,
seemed struck with horror, and rent its veil.
Shocked at the sin of man, indignant at the murder of its Lord, in its sympathy with him who
is the true temple of God, the outward symbol
tore its holy vestments from the top to the bottom” (MTP 34:170).
69 Cf. Rom 8:3.
70 Cf. Exod 19:21.
71 Charles tstruck through the words “The” and
“or.” He uses these two words near the end of
his sentence, “none could have entered heaven,
or the way of life, (emphasis mine); however,
he struck through them because he saw fit to
include the causation of their entering heaven
and the way of life, that is, the death of Jesus
Christ.
72 “It is not only what we have done, but what we
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are that keeps us apart from God…When grace
makes us partakers of the divine nature, then are
we at one with the Lord, and the veil is taken
away” (MTP 34:170); cf. Heb 10:20.
73 Cf. Exod 39:38-39.
74 Charles originally wrote the word “an.”
75 Cf. Matt 26:57-58, Luke 22:54.
76 Trans., Latin, “holy of holies.”
77 Cf. Rom 3:22, 10:12; Gal 3:28; Col 3:10.
78 An illegible letter is written beneath the “i” in
“its.” It is likely an “a.”
79 It is unclear as to why Charles struck through
the word “Gospel.” An ink splotch appears over
the letters “ly” in the word, “Heavenly.” It is
likely the accidental result of a smudge.
80 Cf. Eph 3:1-13, Col 1:26.
81 Cf. Heb 10:1.
82 It is evident that Charles still has in his mind the
previous sermon, “God the Father of Lights”
(Notebook 2, Sermon No. 95).
83 “Look, look boldly through Jesus Christ: but
do not content yourself with looking! Hear
what the text says: ‘Having boldness to enter
in’” (MTP 34:174). Cf. Eph 3:12, Heb 4:16.
84 Charles originally did not separate the words
“high” and “priest.”
85 Cf. Heb 9:7.
86 Cf. 1 Pet 2:9, Rev 5:10.
87 Charles Spurgeon, The Saint and His Saviour
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1880).
88 “For believers the veil is not rolled up, but rent.
34
The veil was not unhooked, and carefully folded
up, and put away, so that is might be put in its
place at some future time. Oh, no! but the divine
hand took it and rent it from top to bottom. It
can never be hung up again; that is impossible.
Between those who are in Christ Jesus and the
great God, there will never be another separation… Only one veil was made, and as that is
rent, the one and only separator is destroyed”
(MTP 34:173). Cf. Rom 8:38-39.
89 “In heaven you will be with God; but on earth
he will be with you” (MTP 34:175).
90An alternate reading of this line is “Of the reception saints now receive. When they die, they
can enter heaven.”
91 Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70 by the Roman armies under the command of Titus. Jesus
had prophesied its destruction (Matt 24:1-2,
Mark 13:1-2).
92 “The ordinances of an earthly priesthood were
rent with that veil” (MTP 34:170). See also
“God’s Estimation of Men” (Notebook 1, Sermon No. 41).
93 “It was not the act of an irreverent mob; it was
not the midnight outrage of a set of profane
priests: it was the act of God alone” (MTP
34:174).
94 Cf. 1 Pet 4:17.
95 “If there had only been a small hole cut through
it, the lesser offenders might have crept through;
but what an act of abounding mercy is this, that
the veil is rent in the midst, and rent from top
to bottom, so that the chief of sinners may find
ample passage!” (MTP 34:173)
In 1857, Charles Spurgeon-the most popular preacher in the Victorian world­
promised his readers that he would publish his earliest sermons. For almost 160 years,
these sermons have been lost to history. Beginning in February 2017, B&H Academic
will start releasing a multi-volume set that includes full-color facsimiles, transcriptions,
contextual and biographical introductions, and editorial annotations. Written for
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The Lost Sermons of
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